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4000M Climbing the Highest Peaks of the Alps

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4000M Climbing the Highest Peaks of the Alps Alps 116. Simon Pierce, Gran Paradiso, cloud passing over, 2006, watercolour, 51 x 67.5cm 117 DAVE WYNNE-JONES 4000m Climbing The Highest Mountains of The Alps t the outset I must make a distinction between climbing the ‘4000m Apeaks’ and climbing the highest mountains of the Alps. There is a curious list of eighty-two ‘4000m peaks’ produced by the Club 4000 based on a UIAA source but with a suggestion that the expanded list may rise to 120 or more. Many of these are not mountains. Some, such as the Aigu- illes de Diable on Mont Blanc du Tacul, are no more than gendarmes on a ridge. Others like the Grande Rocheuse or Aiguille de Jardin on the Jardin Ridge of the Aiguille Verte could be classified as subsidiary tops by a Mun- roist, but the more far-fetched like Mont Brouillard or Pic Luigi Amedeo are truly hard to find on the bulk of Mont Blanc upon which they feature as insignificant excrescences. When I walked past the Balmenhorn I had decided that certain ‘4000m peaks’ were unworthy of the name. The Diable and Jardin Ridges are fine routes in their own right and do not need any spurious claim to 4000m peak status. With all due respect to Karl Blodig and others, there is a quality of obsession that can blind one to the realities of climbing mountains. Indeed, if Blodig were alive today he would prob- ably be agonising over the fact that his total only reached 76. I chose not to let that happen. Instead I found myself climbing with companions who had adopted the list of fifty-two 4000m independent mountains compiled by Robin Collomb. The irony is that I never set out to do any such thing. My first 4000m mountain was Mont Blanc, often the case, I believe: go to Chamonix often enough and the biggest beast on the block becomes an inevitable target. In 1981, fit and acclimatised after three weeks of climb- ing, three of us halved the guidebook time from the Goûter refuge to the summit, at least in part because we were travelling so light we had to move fast just to keep warm. Freezing for hours on the summit, waiting for dawn, had little attraction; neither did forcing our way back against the queues of later climbers. On impulse we headed off down indistinct snow slopes on what we believed to be the traverse to the Aiguille du Midi. It wasn’t, and all three of us very nearly disappeared into the biggest hidden crevasse I have ever seen before we got back on track. After that, we didn’t have an appetite for Mont Maudit or Mont Blanc du Tacul. Our final summit of that trip was also 4000m but chosen only because it had been seen to dominate the Vallée Blanche from most of the routes we had previously climbed. The Dent du Géant turned out to be the only Alpine route I have done encased in a duvet jacket and our hands still froze to the fixed ropes – ethics don’t survive when survival is at stake. These were not auspicious beginnings, but I wasn’t aware of having made a beginning at all. 119 120 T h e A l p i n e J o u r n A l 2 0 0 9 117. Dent de Géant – ‘turned out be the only Alpine route I have done encased in a duvet jacket’. (Dave Wynne-Jones) The following year found me bivouacking on the Moine ridge of the Aiguille Verte by a complete error of judgement, while in 1983 an ill-fated excursion to the Ecrins included a traverse of the Barre des Ecrins before loose rock and poor snow conditions sent us scuttling back to Chamonix. For the rest of the decade, despite repeated visits to Chamonix, the nearest I came to another 4000m summit was in 1986 when Rick Ayres and I fin- ished the Frontier ridge of Mont Maudit by traversing off to descend to the Vallée Blanche without ever reaching the summit. No, 4000m peaks were not really on the agenda, not only because of my various climbing partners’ priorities but also because of my own focus on routes in general, rather than peaks, and Rébuffat’s 100 best routes in particular. All that changed in 1990. I’d been climbing with Denis Mitchell and we both had a yen for pastures new. His ex-wife, the much-married Marian, Elmes as she was then, Parsons as she is now, was a fellow member of the Chester Mountaineering Club who had recently joined the Alpine Club. It was she who encouraged us to attend an AC meet based in Randa. Moun- taineering around Zermatt is virtually impossible without climbing 4000m mountains; the place is stiff with them and our first season included the Zinalrothorn, Alphubel-Täschhorn-Dom traverse, and Bishorn-Weisshorn traverse. When Denis went home I teamed up with Charlie Kenwright for the Ober Gabelhorn and Dave Penlington for the Fletschhorn-Lagginhorn traverse. These were all cracking routes and dispelled any lingering doubts I might have had about these big mountains being boring snow plods. No doubt, the voie normale on the Lagginhorn is a tedious loose slog in ascent, so why do it when the fine ridges of the Fletschhorn-Lagginhorn traverse are there for the taking? c l i m b i n G T h e 4 0 0 0 e r s 121 The following year the AC meet was again in Randa. Now a member, I was teamed up with Dick Murton for the Lenzspitze – Nadelhorn traverse, even though I’d passed out on reaching the Mischabel hut the afternoon before with what must have been a mixture of altitude and heat exhaus- tion. This was followed by the Dent Blanche via the loose cliffs of the in- frequently climbed Wandflue, then the Dent d’Hérens when steep, delicate ice-climbing on the ascent of the north-west face was followed by a race back down through moving séracs to regain the relative safety of the Tief- mattengletscher. After Dick went back to work, unsettled weather set in so I joined Mike Pinney and Jeff Harris for an ascent of the Lauteraarhorn following a marathon walk-in from the Grimsel Pass. Mike had correctly read the local weather patterns to find a fine option. One of the advantages of the AC meets was the fertility of ideas growing amongst the group as to alternatives when conditions were less than ideal. Another was the sense of others looking out for you. I can recall several tense evenings as the shadows lengthened with still no sign of an expected team’s return, yet no real disaster until Rick Eastwood’s death in 2007. Of course any visit to Zermatt is overshadowed by the presence of the Matterhorn but I had no interest in joining the queues on the Hörnli: at least one AC team had taken 20 hours on the route! That was before Mike Pinney approached me with a cunning plan. This involved taking two days to traverse over the Theodule Pass, descend below the south face of the Matterhorn, then back up around the Tête du Lion to access the Carrel bivouac hut, climb the Italian ridge and traverse the mountain back to Zermatt. Rising for the climb, we were disappointed to find a lightning storm lighting up the darkness over Monte Rosa and heading in our direction. We delayed for a day but with minimal supplies were forced to scrounge stale bread and discarded scraps that sparsely littered the shelves of the hut. Later that day the weather cleared up enough for us to scout the route as far as the crest of the ridge. It was very different from the guidebook description so was time well spent. Returning, we found Daphne Pritchard and Dick Sykes had arrived. Dick thoughtfully demolished half a kilo of cheese, later ensuring that not a soul in the hut got any sleep as he shared his terrifying dreams with us. That night Mike and I were first out of the hut and, despite someone stealing my head-torch, managed a rapid ascent of the superb Italian ridge. I particularly remember leaning way out back- wards to grasp the icy rungs of the precariously placed Echelle Jordan. We didn’t linger on the summit as the crowds were already forming charac- teristic bottlenecks on the Hörnli. In descent however, it was possible to take alternative lines with the advantage of height to identify them and we skipped around the bouchons to reach the Hörnli hut in just seven hours from the Carrel. That was Mike’s last route of the season but I was taking full advantage of the long summer break that teaching affords. Another advantage of the AC meets at that time was the involvement of families that guaranteed 122 T h e A l p i n e J o u r n A l 2 0 0 9 social support for climbing couples and an exciting extended family for the children. I had brought my family out with me so, with time to do the reading for the terms ahead on rest days, there was nothing to draw me home. I was also realising that long traverses were not only very enjoy- able but didn’t half total up some summits. I joined Bob Elmes and Mike Pearson for the Nadelgrat traverse from the Dürrenhorn to the Nadelhorn, and on the descent recovered a pair of gaiters from the guardian at the Mischabel hut that I’d left there weeks before: he opened the store door on a roomful of abandoned kit and told me to find them.
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